No Sugar Coating: Everglades Safari Park

Selfie+with+the+resting+alligator.

Walkyria Paz

Selfie with the resting alligator.

Walkyria Paz, Staff Writer

An alligator resting and getting some sunlight.

I was scrolling through Groupon and came across an Everglades Safari Park coupon. The coupon was worth $31 and included two adult admissions to the safari park. I bought them since I was about 13 miles away from the park because why not? The purchase was super easy, I bought the Groupon with Apple Pay and afterwards I received a voucher with a barcode.

Upon arriving, they had a small soveniur shop among the messy parking lot. The whole process with the Groupon was very easy and the wait to get on the airboat was about 15 minutes.

The airboat ride was awesome. After learning about the Everglades in school for so many years, seeing it in person was amazing. The tour guide was extremely nice and had a great sense of humor. The weather was very windy and the sun wasn’t out completely, so we didn’t see many alligators, given that alligators need heat and sunlight. Regardless of this the tour guide tried his best to go to the alligator spots so we could see them.

After getting off the boat they took everyone on the boat to a private show with three alligators. I learned the difference between alligators, met and held the park’s youngest alligator, saw an alligator get a massage and saw alligators get fed.

Lastly, there was a small trail on the way out where you could see alligators just laying and walking around in their natural habitat. This is very important because even though this is a “park” not all the alligators were in cages and were able to walk around freely. After all, alligators are very calm animals unless provoked, but usually they run from humans. However, crocodiles are predators and look for humans to eat them.

All in all, the experience was awesome and a good Sunday outing.

P.S alligators have a V shaped snout and crocodiles have a C shaped snout. Just for reference.